Ideas: A) Does 'osstest' have better volume? B) Does changing the value of codec3.misc change anything?

I suspect these would fail, but it's worth a shot. if not, we may have to patch the source and rebuild OSS (See here). I know that changing the last argument of HDA_OUTAMP in kernel/drv/oss_hdaudio/ to 100 would raise it the volume bit, but I'm not sure where to go further. Hmmm..

Notice that resampling may reduce the amplitude of the original signal, simply because it usually involves "normalization" to prevent clipping. Since low quality resamplers tend to produce strong distortions, the further "normalization" is likely to cause an essential reduction of amplitude.

Since both ALSA and OSS4 have the worst resamplers enabled by default, semi-deaf Linux newbies may try to increase loudness to improve "sound quality". Linux is dangerous for health (in this sense). To make things worse, PulseAudio is enabled by default in major Linux distributions such as Fedora, Ubuntu, Linux Mint, OpenSUSE, Arch Linux and so on. Small wonder, the number of Linux users is comparable with the number of the deafhttp://blogs.adobe.com/open/2011/06/foc ... lient.htmlhttp://research.gallaudet.edu/Demographics/deaf-US.php

As it was already noticed (although, perhaps, too late) by Ingo Molnar, a Linux kernel developer from Red Hat Software:

It was expected that PulseAudio would solve all problems: all the Mac OS and Windows users would install Ubuntu, Micro$oft would go go bankrupt, and so on, and the utopian dreams of Richard Stallman would be materialized. But disillusionment was bound to follow (as it usually happens with Cargo cults [Russian translation]). For some strange reason, the "kids with old ears and old brains" do not seem to be perfectly happy with PulseALSA and other "open-source crap". Radical reforms seem inevitable. They might be initiated by Linux kernel developers. The result is likely to be a complete destruction of Linux.

Why Linux Is Decrepit Donkey CrapNobody seems to realize how truly ancient Linux is. We're living in the internet age when 5 years is a long time and 10 an eternity, yet Linux is over 40 years old. It wasn't known by that name 40 years ago but that hardly matters since it's hardly changed since. Linux dates back to a prehistoric era when computer dinosaurs roamed the Earth and stern patriarchs ruled the home. And it shows!Linux has 40 years' worth of mistakes and missed opportunities accumulated in a gigantic pile of crap... Linux's model of users is still based on Fascism...It's amazingly difficult to convey exactly how ancient, how capricious, how fucked up, and how totally dysfunctional this piece of crapware called Linux is.It's vile, incoherent, inconsistent, contradictory, meaningless, arbitrary, senseless, ad hoc, unprincipled, bloated, arrogant, dictatorial, fetid, rotten, corrupt, and just plain evil. http://richardkulisz.blogspot.de/2010/1 ... -crap.html

A simple test for semi-deafness: if an increase of loudness makes music sound better, you might already be semi-deaf. It this case, you may need to take precautions. If you are suspicious about modern medicine, you may try ancient Taoist techniques http://de1.chinabroadcast.cn/21/2005/07/15/1@32902.htm

cesium wrote: I know that changing the last argument of HDA_OUTAMP in kernel/drv/oss_hdaudio/ to 100 would raise it the volume bit

Do you mean /oss-v4.2-build2006-src-gpl/kernel/drv/oss_hdaudio/hdaudio_dedicated.h ?

I tend to believe that HDA_OUTAMP is the cause of some very strange bugs on my Dell notebook Latitude D531.Perhaps, a semi-deaf developer hacked the OSS4 code to increase loudness on notebooks with HDA codecs http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hearing_impairment#Age

As a workaround (for Dell Latitude D531 notebook), I have to use the mic jack for sound output (the headphones jack is much louder, but sound quality is bad).Moreover, to remove a strange noise in the external speakers (a kind of 50Hz), I have to plug an external display into the notebook (my old IBM notebook with ICH4 does not have such problems).

Do you remember old discussions about "distorted sound" with Intel HDA codecs?For example: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=3552There is still a kind of "troubleshooting advice for OSS4" in Arch Linux Wiki: